


The Weaving

by ntmnky



Category: Spider-Man (Ultimateverse), Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Ol' Parker Luck, Triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 04:11:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6550282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ntmnky/pseuds/ntmnky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the Cataclysm, the Ultimate Spider-Woman is flung across dimensions. What will her journey home cost and how will the Teen Titans help?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relocating this from it's original home. Still un-beta'd, but I have made (minor) revisions to the text, fixed some typos, and am working through my writer's block.

Darkness surrounded her. An unfamiliar place. Noiseless, lightless, so very similar to the other places she let her astral self wander. So utterly foreign.

From the darkness, a voice. "What have we here?" the voice asked. In her mind, the voice was vaguely feminine, but ageless. The words spoken with an accent she did not recognize. "You do not belong in this place; you are not part of the web."

"Who are you?" she asked, straining to see the source of the voice in the darkness. "I was meditating and did not intend to come here... Wherever here is."

“I am known by many names, but you may call me Cassandra,” the voice said from the nothingness, seemingly moving. A faint sniff in the blackness, “But what do I call you, hrm? Are you the Trickster, or the Harbinger?”

Defiant as the nothing swirled around her, she replied, “I am Raven.”

Laughter in the black, echoing in the vast emptiness. “Indeed you are. A caution for you, Raven. Do not allow the spider to be plucked from her web, lest the weaving become undone.”

“Now,” the voice commanded, “awaken!”

Raven startled, eyes wide open, body still in lotus position. “That’s… That shouldn’t be possible,” she muttered, stunned that she had been forced from her trance. Brushing violet hair from her eyes, she stood and padded to her bookshelf to seek answers.


	2. Cleaning up the Pieces

Wind whipped through her hair. Sun highlighting the dark crimson bodysuit she wore, a stylized spider emblazoned in white across her chest, its hind legs curling around her hips to meet in the small of her back. At the top of her arcing path, she let go of the line, her body falling backwards, tucking her legs in to roll. The city flipped past her view once, then twice before she straightened. Spreading her legs wide for balance, she reached out and fired more web-lines from her fingertips.

The sunny weather was a sharp contrast to the mood of the city. Only a day had passed since Kitty Pryde had distracted the gigantic, inter-dimensional devourer of worlds called Galactus. The bitch-slap seen across the globe had allowed Tony Stark and Reed Richards to open a portal and banish the terror into the negative zone. But before their eventual victory, sacrifices had been made.

Steve Rogers, Captain America, had died. Thor, the Asgardian God, was lost with Galactus.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians had been killed.

New Jersey was gone.

As bright as the sun was, Jessica Drew, the Amazing Spider-Woman’s mood was dark. Debris from Galactus’ brief battle with Kitty was spread across New York, littering the city. The remnants of SHIELD and the Ultimates were trying to clean it up, trying to keep it out of the hands of curious civilians that might come to more harm. And even with the loss of so many lives, in the shadow of near extinction, man tried to prey on man.

“….” came a soft sound on the wind. Jessica turned her head trying to catch the sound she thought she heard.

“……” it came again, louder, more determined. Jessica let go of her line and fell into a swan dive, dropping 20 floors as she listened.

“….eelp….eeeeee….” the cry came. Jessica fired a web-line to the nearest building, pulling out of her descent. Spying an alley, Jessica reached over and shot out two more lines, tugging hard once they caught a building, changing her trajectory. Swinging over the alleyway, she looked down and saw a woman being pressed against the dirty brick wall by a man, a knife to her throat.

Jessica let go of the lines she was using to sail over the alley, firing fresh webbing to pull herself to the wall above the woman and her apparent assailant. Sticking to the brick wall by finger and toe, Jessica climbed lower, quickly assessing the situation. 

“Look, you stupid bitch,” the man growled, his stained plaid overcoat and frayed jeans signaling a distant relationship with prosperity. “Give me what I want, and I won’t hurtcha more,” he said, pressing the blade of the knife harder against her throat.

Frowning inside her mask for a brief moment, Jessica fired a single web line to the knife blade. “Shame, shame,” Jessica said, yanking hard and pulling the knife out of the mugger’s hand. “I’m going to have to report you to Santa and have you put on the naughty list this year. Mugger’s don’t even get coal.” Another quick web line pinned the knife to the wall, far out of reach of the mugger.

Springing down from the wall, Jessica grabbed the man’s shoulders as she tucked into a somersault behind him. Rolling on the ground, Jessica threw the man away from the woman he had accosted. Even as he smashed to the ground, Jessica was on her feet again, turning and firing web lines from every finger, cocooning him. “Really, I would love to stay and chat, but, ya’ know, if you hadn’t noticed, we were all nearly snack chips for a giant. And he made a mess of the place when we kicked his ass.”

Turning back to the woman, Jessica bowed slightly and smirked under her mask. “Thank you for choosing Spider-Woman for your ‘Fair Maiden in Distress’ rescuing needs. If you would take a few moments to answer the SHIELD satisfaction questionnaire when they call…” she quipped, web-lines already pulling her up into the air and away from the mugging.

Two quick taps on the transceiver in her right ear activated the device connecting her to the small, dedicated group of surviving SHIELD dispatch officers. “This is SHIELD; Agent Laws speaking. Identify yourself and the nature of your report,” came the tinny, feminine voice.

“Mary! Thank, God, you made it!” Jessica almost squealed in response, more web lines pulling her further from the mugging. Calming herself after a moment, Jessica continued, “This is Agent Drew, codename Spider-Woman. I have a mugger webbed up at the alley southeast of 7th Ave and 17th Street. Can you please send pick-up?”

“Spider-Woman,” came the voice back to her ear, “please confirm identity with your counter-sign. ‘The man who tried to kill me; he’s a stuffed-shirt’.”

Another set of web-lines and Jessica was another 2 blocks closer to Midtown. “‘Who is Nick Fury?’” Jessica answered over the wind.

“Counter-sign confirmed. It’s good to hear you again, Jess. I was afraid we lost you when the Tricarrier went down. We’ll send pick-up, but you’re needed in Battery Park. Spider-Man has called for a priority one evacuation of the area. He’s fighting something down there.”

At the top of her arc, Jessica twisted and shot webs in a new direction, pulling herself south. “Anything else you can tell me? she asked.

“Sorry, Jess. All I know is that he sounded serious about clearing the area. Good luck!”

“Thanks, Mary,” Jessica said swinging quickly towards the park, “I still owe you dinner after all this calms down. Spider-Woman out.”

Whipping through the air, Jessica thought to herself, ‘I hope this is just the new kid being cautious. New York really doesn’t need another emergency, even a small one.’

Minutes later, Jessica swung into the open desolation that used to be Battery Park. Debris from both Galactus’ machine and the Tricarrier was strewn across the formerly green fields. Now, much of the grass and most of the trees were charred and black. Jessica was forced to slow since there were no tall buildings for her to swing from. And soon she was leaping from debris pile to tree and back to debris, making inhumanly long jumps. As she leapt further into the park she felt increasingly uneasy.

And then she saw him.

Jessica froze, perched between leaps and stared. It shouldn’t be possible, but there was Norman Osborn, in his goblin form, fighting the new Spider-Man, Miles Morales.

For a full minute, Jessica did nothing but stare.

Hate and rage mixed together within her, bubbling up as righteous fury. When the Goblin struck Miles, knocking him to the ground Jessica started running to the fight. As the Goblin placed his foot on Miles’ head, she leapt forward, screaming, “NNnnnnnooooooo!”

She pushed herself; running faster, leaping further than she had since she first fled the lab where she was “born”. Covering the last 400 meters of broken ground in a few short seconds. Jessica leapt at the last moment, spinning, kicking out with her right heel and striking Osborn in the back of the head.

He staggered and Jessica leapt back, dropping to a crouch. Turning away from Spider-Man, the Goblin grinned a toothy, maniacal smile at her. “Peter… Parker,” he said, his voice the sound gravel grinding under tires, “I get to kill you again.”

Jessica frowned under her mask, “I am not Peter.” She kept her eyes on Osborn, trusting that Miles was looking for a way to help slow or stop Osborn.

“Of course you are,” the Goblin said. He took a swift, overhand swing at Jessica which she dodged, her spider-sense warning her. “Miss Webb… The CIA psychic copied your brain into this body. Such lovely torture they had planned for you.” The Goblin punched at Jessica again, and she leapt up, over his fist. “And I have been chosen to kill you again.”

Jessica shot webbing from her fingertips, latching onto the Goblin’s shoulders. A hard yank on the webs, and Jessica was kicking him in the face again. She was angry. Pissed that Norman had gone after Peter’s family. Pissed that just as she was finally putting herself together, knowing who she could be, Norman was trying to tie her to Peter again. Pissed that after all the people Norman had killed, he lived.

Dropping to the ground, Jessica punched him hard in the gut. “I am not,” she grunted, sending another blow to his ribcage. A third to his jaw, huffing, “Peter”. Jessica had no thoughts of mercy as she pushed back and kicked again, hissing, “Parker.” Looking past the Goblin, she saw that Miles was still on the ground, but breathing. Norman swung, all power and little control behind his fist, and Jessica dodged easily. Another swing and Jessica dodged it, stepping back. Jessica retaliated, directing a high kick to his face, only to have the Goblin grab her ankle. He turned, spinning, pulling Jessica up. And then she was flying backwards. Coming to a stop by crashing painfully into some larger bits of Galactus’ machine.

Reaching behind her, Jessica grasped a rod from the wreckage. As the Goblin approached her, Jessica swung the rod at him with all her might. Just before it smashed against the Goblin, Jessica’s mind noted that the rod was made from some sort of amethyst colored crystal.

It shattered when it struck the Goblin, flashing with a brilliant light.

Her spider-sense screamed with no time to escape.

Everything tasted purple.


	3. The Rags

“See, this is one of those things I don’t get,” Beast Boy said, a gloved hand pointing at a copy of _Tattletale_ by the check-out lane, while Robin unloaded their cart onto the conveyor belt. “If this ‘Spider’ is one of the good guys, why doesn’t he come over to the tower, introduce himself and team-up with us?”

Robin looked up and glanced at the tabloid Beast Boy was pointing at. The cover had an almost entirely black box with the hint of paler ellipses where someone’s eyes would be, the headline boldly proclaiming that _Tattletale_ had ‘EXCLUSIVE: First Pics of the Mysterious SPIDER!!! See Jump City’s NEW Protector!’

“I don’t know, Beast Boy. As I understand it, this Spider has limited himself to muggings, rapes, the sort of street crime that we let the police take care of,” Robin said, running a hand through his messy hair before returning his attention to their groceries. “Not everybody wants to be a superhero. Since it’s all street crime, maybe he’s just trying to repent for something he did previously?”

Cart empty, Robin paused thoughtfully while the checker furiously scanned the pile of groceries that would feed the teenaged heroes for a week. “We might have to look into the Spider, after all. Without knowing what his motivation is, we might be looking at a potential villain.”

“Really, Robin?” Beast Boy asked incredulously. “We have a hero stopping street crimes, and you’re thinking it’s a cover for some villain? Maybe you need to lay off the paranoia.”

Robin shrugged, watching the growing collection of bagged groceries. “You may be right,” Robin said, “But if it does turn out that I am, you get my laundry duties for a month.”

“And if I’m right…” Beast Boy asked expectantly.

“If you’re right,” Robin laughed, “you’re going to be telling all of us about it until Raven pitches you into the bay. For a third time.” Looking at beast Boy’s expectant expression, Robin sighed before continuing, “And I’ll do your turns doing dishes for a month.”

“Deal!” Beast Boy exclaimed, sticking his hand out.

Robin shook on the bet and turned his attention back to the groceries, moving the sacks back into their cart. After paying their bill and offering the cashier a friendly, “Have a good day!” Beast Boy pushed the cart out of the store and down the strip mall towards the local tea and coffee place, Teatopia, where Cyborg, Starfire and Raven were getting the various coffees and tea blends that kept the team going on those unfortunate occasions where they were kept up for three days trying to stop a super-criminal.

Along the sidewalk, the pair passed the usual assortment of civilians who were taking advantage of the warm coastal autumn to do some shopping and walking. The one anomaly Beast Boy immediately spotted was the person huddled against one of the planters. Worn-out deck shoes, threadbare jeans and an oversized flannel shirt wrapped tightly around her told Beast Boy that she was likely homeless. Her brunette hair was disheveled and looked like it had recently been hacked into something resembling a bob, the bangs longer than the back. And the rough taper between the two reminded him of Raven’s hair.

As they walked past, Beast Boy’s eyes tracked her. Too old to be a run-away, too young for life to have chewed her up, but from the way she kept her head down, he knew she was spending most of her time on the streets. And when she wasn’t on the streets, the faint scent of coconut body and hair wash told him she was staying in one of the few women’s shelters in Jump City.

“It sucks that we still can’t fix homelessness,” Robin said, bringing Beast Boy back to the present.

“Yea… Are we doing that ‘Holiday for the Hungry’ thing again? I can’t imagine how bad it would be to be both homeless and hungry during the holidays.”

Robin repressed a wry smirk. He knew that Beast Boy didn’t have to imagine; before the Titans, Beast Boy had been both homeless and hungry before and after his time with the Doom Patrol. “Yea, we’ll do that again. It’s good for the community.”

“Cool.”


	4. On a Gossamer Thread

A storm was hanging low over Jump City, leaving the night cool and the streets slick with rainwater. In dark an alley, a terrified couple and their son were backing away from a very large, bald man wielding a gun. The boy’s first pair of 3d movie glasses had been dropped and lay forgotten in a slowly growing puddle.

“Warren, just give him your wallet!” the woman shrieked.

“Too late, youz had your chance. Alls you had to do was gimme your money and jewels. But you gotta play the hero. Now I gots to rough you up,” the thug growled menacingly as he raised his gun towards the husband.

From somewhere above, somewhere in the dark of night, a gossamer line shot down and connected with the thug’s gun. And a moment later, the gun was sailing up into the black. “What tha hell?!” exclaimed the would be villain. Another gossamer thread landed on the thug’s head and he was pulled up into the same black that had swallowed his gun.

His startled cry in the dark was silenced, ending with a soft “thump” echoing between the brick walls of the alley.

The husband took a few steps forward, looking up, trying the see what had taken the mugger. He yelped when the thug dropped, hanging upside-down in a cocoon of fine webs, his eyes and nose exposed.

“Terry, stay away from him,” the husband said, stopping his son’s approach with an outstretched hand. “Mary, call the police.”

Far above, a figure slipped further into the night.

* * *

“Always in the alleys,” Spider-Woman muttered, marveling at the ability for criminals to find or otherwise lure victims into alleys. “At this point, I’m starting to think it’s an unrecognized superpower…”

Running across the rooftops, springing from building to building, Jessica Drew frowned under her mask, wishing that she could just swing back to the abandoned warehouse she was currently calling “home”. Unfortunately, even discounting her naturally high metabolism, webbing burned calories and used protein she wasn’t getting with enough regularity. 

Since she found herself a stranger in this strange land, Spider-Woman had quickly reverted to the skills she had depended on when she had first fled from SHIELD. “The worst part about being homeless once,” she muttered, “is that it prepares you for being homeless again.”

Four months had passed since her short fight with the impossibly alive Green Goblin. She had returned to consciousness to in an alleyway, her body aching like she’d done 5 rounds in a vibranium cage with the Rhino and her mouth had tasting like something undead had died a second time in it. Her first sign that she wasn’t in the world that she knew was a dirty copy of the _Jump City Herald_ her face had been resting on, it’s front page picture and headline declaring 'Coast City Saved! Sinestro Shows Yellow Belly!' A few minutes reading that paper had left her saying, “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.”

Now, Jessica was getting by on odd cash jobs and a woman’s shelter and the kindness of strangers while she tried to get integrated into the social support network. She knew from the past that it would be much faster to buy an identity. But she also knew that the time explaining to a case worker that she didn’t know where or how to get a birth certificate (“I’ve been on the streets since I was born” wasn’t technically a lie) would be a much safer way to become a legal citizen.

Her nights were spent on patrol. She knew that Jump City had it’s own team of heroes, but they seemed to mostly engage the super-villains that were more numerous in this world. Street crimes they left to the competent Jump City Police Department. Unfortunately “competent” didn’t mean “omnipresent” nor “omniscient”. So Jessica had taken to helping from the shadows, focusing on making the lives of the less fortunate a little safer.

Her patrols had been noticed within weeks. Pimps and peddlers moved to brighter, more prominent corners, preferring their chances with the police than with the Spider lurking in the dark. Street crime rates dropped. And then the tabloids started their wild speculation and offering rewards for pictures.

Arriving at the rooftop door of a rundown warehouse, Spider-Woman stopped and checked the two fine strands of webbing she used as an intrusion indicator. Satisfied that they were both intact, she opened the door and let herself into the warehouse loft. Long abandoned before she had found it, she had since turned it into a makeshift home. The lack of water and electricity meant she was still frequenting the shelters, but here she had a place to leave her meager possessions when she went out. 

Inside, her first action was to light an old, worn propane lantern she’s picked up at a surplus store. The glow of it’s mantle illuminated the space in a soft golden glow. Along one wall lay her neatly folded, clean if ill-fitting clothes. On the other, a well worn bedroll that she was sure was third or fourth hand.

Securing the door behind her, Jessica peeled down her mask and looked a the stack of papers she had collected for “superhero homework”. Plastered across the front of yesterday’s _Daily Planet_ was a picture of Superman throwing a punch at the villain known as Darkseid. “And I thought,” she muttered, “that Osborn could take a punch.”

She peeled off her gloves, picked up the paper and settled down on her bedroll to read for a few minutes before turning lantern’s gas off and going to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All standard disclaimers for fanfiction should apply. Specific disclaimers include: 
> 
> The Teen Titans, Batman, Sinestro, the Green Lantern Corps, the McGinnis family et cetera are properties of DC Comics. Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, the Rhino et al. are properties of Marvel Comics.


	5. Cobwebs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This contains my first serious efforts at an action sequence. Please be gentle in your comments. Also, the "M" rating begins to be earned in this chapter. There is some whump! and violence.

“The Dungeness crab lives in eel-grasses along the Pacific coast of North America,” the narrator of _American Coasts_ said in a low, pleasing monotone. The five members of the Teen Titans were sprawled on and around their curved couch watching the nature documentary that Beast Boy had turned on.

On the television, a dark purple and white crab was walking out of the thin, green grasses an into a bare sandy patch when a burst of digital noise broke through the picture. Replacing it was a “Breaking News!” ticker and star reporter Ashley Martin.

“Aw, man!” Beast Boy whined, “Can’t one week go by without ‘Breaking News’!”

“Quiet, Beast Boy,” Robin said, “this may be important.”

“-ust in,” continued Ashley’s melodic reporting voice as Beast Boy quieted. “The creature known as Cinderblock is rampaging through the Jump City financial district. At present his motives are-”

Robin was already moving to the elevator when he cried, “Titans, go!” 

* * *

Far across the city, Jessica Drew was sitting on the sidewalk, twenty feet away from the ATM outside Jump City First Financial. Her head was down, long bangs falling in front of her eyes. Wearing a flannel shirt, jeans that were too big and deck shoes that were mostly holes and duct tape, she kept her eyes on the hat between her feet, a few pieces of change in it. She started to look up when she heard screams and a heavy “krthump” from down the street.

She leapt forward when the angry buzzing in her head warned her that something very bad was coming at her. With a deafening crunch, the mangled remains of a car crashed and slid across the sidewalk where she had just been. Turning to look where it had come from, Jessica saw a stone giant. 

“Cinderblock,” she muttered to herself; her reading about the Teen Titans letting her identify one of their more common foes. A quick glance around the Tuesday afternoon crowds was all she needed to decide that it was time for Spider-Woman to be seen in the daytime. As she turned to run towards an alley she paused. Movement in the corner of her eye revealed itself to be a stroller with a child still in it rolling into the street in front of Cinderblock.

She acted.

Her right hand tore her flannel shirt open and grabbed her mask, pulling it up, covering her face in dark scarlet and brilliant white eyes. Her left whipped out and she fired a web-line from her fingertip to the stroller. A flick of her wrist, and the stroller and child were pulled away from Cinderblock’s heavy, crushing foot.

Leaping up and firing a web-line to a nearby building, Spider-Woman shrugged out of her flannel shirt as she swung towards Cinderblock. “Hey, tall, dark and ugly!” she taunted in an effort to draw the golem's attention, “You had better not be the mysterious stranger my horoscope promised!” At the end of her arc, she let go of her web-line and sailed through the air to land a kick to Cinderblock’s large head. Bouncing away from him, she landed in a low crouch and looked up at his full two story height.

Roaring, Cinderblock kicked at her, and Spider-Woman slipped to the side. 

“Really? Incoherent roars?” Spider-Woman asked. Leaping up, she punched him in the chest. Cinderblock was unmoved, and she spun away, the force of her punch pushing her back. Firing another web-line and pulling herself to a building, she kicked off her deck shoes. ‘That’s not going to work….’ she thought. 

Cinderblock was bending down to pick up another car while Spider-Woman reassessed the situation. And to her dismay she saw that the driver hadn’t gotten out and fled yet. As Cinderblock’s hand crushed the trunk, Spider-Woman’s webs hit the driver’s door. With a quick tug it was pulled from the car. And then Spider-Woman was there, sticking to the car, reaching in to unbuckle the seatbelt as Cinderblock lifted the car into the air. Pulling the startled driver into a fireman’s carry, Spider-Woman leapt away. 

“Get out of here!” she urged the driver as she set him down. Her sentence wasn’t finished before he was running away, dress shoes clopping on the pavement.

Spider-Woman was in the air again, pulled aloft by her webbing, dodging the car that Cinderblock was swinging at her. A quick look around to make sure no civilians were in the immediate area, she fired more web-lines. Three quick “thwips” and the stone giant’s eyes were covered. And she was pulling herself to his chest. Feet stuck to his chest, she twisted and punched Cinderblock’s arm, hoping he would drop the car. She felt the bones in her right hand crack and break for her efforts.

Wincing under her mask, she quickly webbed her right hand, leaving her fingers free, in a makeshift splint. Cinderblock dropped the car and tried to grab her off his chest. Dodging his clumsy swings, Spider-Woman dropped to all fours and skittered across his chest, pausing on his back.

‘Right. It’s like punching a mountain,’ she thought. ‘Let’s at least slow him down.’

Spider-Woman fired webbing from each of her fingertips and then began to scurry around Cinderblock, slowly wrapping him in a cocoon of her sticky lines. Instinct sang in her blood as she incapacitated the larger prey.

With Cinderblock wrapped in a layer of her silken webbing, Spider-Woman dropped off him and stepped back, watching him warily. For several long seconds, she entertained the thought that she had stopped Cinderblock. Then she saw his arms moving under the webs, individual strands snapping as he strained. And with a wordless roar, Cinderblock freed his arms.

He flailed, trying to hit Spider-Woman with an open hand even as she was flipping away from him in a back handspring.

* * *

“Robin,” the voice of Oracle spoke into his ear as his motorcycle sped northeast towards the financial district and the last confirmed sighting of Cinderblock.

“Oracle,” her replied into his helmet microphone.

“I’m still collecting information, but reports are that Cinderblock has been engaged by a metahuman. I don’t have clear visuals yet,” Oracle said over the radio, and Robin could hear the frown in her voice, “but eye-witnesses are reporting that it’s the Jump City Spider on social media.”

“Intent?” Robin asked in the brusque manner of his mentor.

“It appears,” Oracle said, “that this Spider person is trying to contain Cinderblock. There are also unconfirmed reports that H.I.V.E. members Mammoth and Gizmo are in the area.”

“Acknowledged,” he said. “See if you can get visual on the all the players.”

Robin pressed a button on his motorcycle’s communication system, paging the other Titans. “This is Robin. It appears that the vigilante the press is calling the Spider has already engaged Cinderblock on scene. Additionally, Mammoth and Gizmo may be in the area.” Acting against the paranoia his mentor had promoted, Robin continued, “Assume that the Spider is not a threat to the Titans.”

Buildings whipped past Robin when Beast Boy came on the comms, “So the Spider is not just some tabloid story?”

“It appears that the Spider is not just a story,” Robin said, slowing for the last corner that would bring him to the financial district. What he saw caused him to bring his motorcycle to a full stop and simply stare for several long seconds.

Cobwebs the size of billboards stretched between buildings. Strands of webbing fifty feet long trailed from the tops of trees. A net of spider-silk was suspending a city bus, its driver helping passengers down a sticky silk rope. And at the far end of the block, a figure in a scarlet bodysuit and torn, faded denim jeans was fighting Cinderblock. “The Spider is a woman,” he muttered to himself.

Stepping off his motorcycle he raised his handheld communicator and started running to the fight. “I have visuals on the Spider. She is definitely trying to protect civilians and keep Cinderblock contained. Beast Boy and Starfire, I need you to help evacuate civilians. Check any suspended cars and then get hanging hazards down. Raven, Cyborg and I will stop Cinderblock.

“What do you mean, hanging ha-ooooh….” Cyborg started to ask, his thought trailing off as the T-Car pulled up next to Robin’s motorcycle.

* * *

Jessica Drew was tired. And sweaty. And hungry. And dirty. She just wanted to eat a greasy burger or six, devour some fries, take a long, hot shower and go to bed for at least a day.

Spider-Woman had to stop Cinderblock from hurting civilians, no matter the cost. She could feel herself getting slower, her energy reserves depleted from being homeless and not eating enough. Someone was running in the distance, a figure in red and green getting closer. ‘Finally the Titans get here,’ she thought.

More webbing to Cinderblock’s eyes and then she was pulling, tugging Cinderblock to the right, trying to force him to circle back again. SHIELD had trained her to minimize the area damaged.

Spider-Woman heard Robin’s cry of “Titan’s, go!” as she jumped back and away from Cinderblock’s fist. And then her spider-sense was screaming about a danger to her right. Still in the air from her jump, she fired web-lines so she could pull herself away from the new danger.

The telephone pole slammed sideways into her ribs, and she felt several bend, bruise and break. The hot-white pain in her side worsened as the telephone pole pushed her through the air and into a building. When her left shoulder dislocated on impact, Spider-Woman passed out from the pain.

She didn’t hear Raven’s cry of, “Mammoth!”

She didn’t feel the blood bubbling in her lungs as her body tried to breathe.


	6. Medic!

Raven’s mind sought the space between dimensions and pulled, a black disk forming under her feet and lifting her into the air as Robin divided the team. Looking down the street from above, it was clear to her that Cinderblock had been led back and forth a few times, isolating the worst damage to a single block. At the far end of the block, the young woman in crimson with a white spider symbol across her chest was kicking Cinderblock again, taunting him into turning down the block again.

Below her, Robin and Cyborg were running towards the fight. Robin’s bō staff was out and extended, Cyborg’s hand transforming into his sonic cannon. With a faint, “Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos,” Raven lifted one of the heavily damaged cars from the street, twisting the wreckage further into a crude steel rope.

Dragging the warped steel rope behind her, Raven prepared to wrap it around Cinderblock the next time the crimson and white clad figure fighting him was far enough away. As she watched the battle, she saw Mammoth coming out from the alley near the two combatants. Held in his large hands, a broken off telephone pole laid over his shoulder like a baseball bat. He shifted, and as Spider-Woman jumped back from Cinderblock, Mammoth swung.

As he swung, Raven yelled out a warning cry of, “Mammoth!”

As he swung, web-lines shot from the fingertips of the Spider-Woman, in an apparent attempt to hit something she could pull against. Some way to change her trajectory and get out of the way of the telephone pole.

As he hit, Raven heard the deep, resonating crack of Spider-Woman’s ribs breaking. In a moment, too short to blink in, Raven saw the limp crimson form propelled into the building. With mounting horror, she witnessed Mammoth’s improvised telephone pole club smashing the young woman against the building, before the pole itself broke.

Dropping the telephone pole, Mammoth grunted once and turned to walk away. Spider Woman’s body sliding down to the sidewalk and crumpling over the pole, the mask around her mouth darkening wetly. As though on cue, Cinderblock turned and bellowed, reaching for another nearby car.

Raven’s communicator burst to life with a shriek of static as Robin gave new orders. “Beast Boy, Starfire, I need you back here with Cinderblock. Cyborg and Raven are on medievac. Now! We’ll track Mammoth down later. He won’t be able to hide for long.”

Urging her black disk to carry her forward and down, slipping past Cinderblock’s massive arm as he swung again, Raven heard a fragment of conversation Robin was having with Oracle, “…where he’s gone to ground. Don’t lose him; we have to know where he is.” 

Cyborg ran up next to Raven, his mouth pulled down into a frown as her black riding disk slipped into the nothing. “That was a bad hit she took, Raven. Gotta move her quickly and safely to the tower. Can’t move her spine or neck in case….” his voice trailed off.

“I’ve got it,” Raven replied over the background of grunts and thwacks of Robin and Cinderblock fighting, before incanting “Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!”

Black energy flowed over Spider-Woman like a thick, viscous fluid before hardening, preventing her battered body from moving beyond the too rapid, too shallow breaths she was taking. As Raven’s dark powers worked to prevent more damage to Spider-Woman, Cyborg’s sonic cannon folded inwards to be replaced by his hand, allowing the him to lift the fallen fighter.

“Straight back to the medbay, I don’t want to move her a lot,” Cyborg cautioned as Raven reached in front of her and tore a hole in space. Carrying the fallen Spider-Woman, Cyborg stepped through the portal.


	7. Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The M rating continues to be earned in this chapter. There are potential triggers for PTSD, captivity and abuse (physical, verbal, implied sexual).

Jessica startled awake, arms flailing out and colliding - bending, breaking - bars that have her surrounded. She’s struggling to consciousness through layers of half-remembered nightmares and memories her waking mind wants to believe are nightmares.

She’s panicked and the sensation of an IV in her arm and restraints around her legs and bars she’s bent and the clinical white of the space she is in is overwhelming. She hurts and she knows she’s been captured, taken by some government organization that SHIELD cannot protect her from. She can’t stop to breathe shehastogetout…

“Hey,” a voice calls to her, faint as a whisper, feminine yet rough, almost flat. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Jessica rolls out of the (ruined, broken) hospital bed, away from the speaker, the things around her legs forgotten for a moment, causing her to stumble and fall to the floor, the IV pulling painfully out of her forearm. Hair falling around her face, hospital gown exposing her back and bottom. The cool air on her ass and the WHITE trigger a deeper panic. She’s been here before. When she was made. When they played with her. Trying to break her.

She backs away from the speaker, intent on scuttling into the closest corner, the lines to the hospital bed’s pressurized leg sleeves popping free, the pressure vessels around her legs deflating. Back to the corner, she climbs up, seeking a shadow, a refuge. Any moment several of the orderlies will come for her, hit her with the cattle prods. Then they will swing them like bats, electrocuting her insufficient for their sadistic desires.

Climbing up, Jessica feels a brief relief. High ceilings mean it will be slightly (but not enough) harder for them to recapture her. That she wasn’t shackled beyond the funny, limp, water-wing things around her calves means they are amateurs (or she’s not a threat to them). She can survive, escape (please let her escape).

Bare butt high, pressed into the corner, almost crouching there with her arms wide, fingertips holding the ceiling, toes stuck to the wall, her waking mind begins to catch up with her body. Below her and on the far side of the hospital bed, stands a girl with pale grey skin, amethyst bangs of hair falling to frame a blood-red stone placed on her forehead. Her hands are raised, arms bent at the elbows, palms turned to Jessica.

“It’s okay,” she says to Jessica. “I’m the only one here and no one else is coming in. You can stay up there if you’re more comfortable, but it would be bett—“ she stops, the discomfort coming off Jessica is thicker than the coastal fogs that roll around the Tower most mornings. “You can stay up there,” she lamely finishes. She moves past the hospital bed, never getting closer to Jessica. She pulls a chair away from the wall and sits down, looking up at the girl in the corner of ceiling and wall.

Jessica's breathing has become the short, quick pants of panic. The girl in front of her doesn’t seem like she’s a threat (the ones that will hurt you most never look like a threat). The girl is calm. In control. The girl will demand she come down, face her punishment. Then the girl will have her beaten and electrocuted and beaten some more. Jessica’s mind slides past what else (not that please anything else) the girl might demand happen to her. 

Jessica would throw up if she could stop her panicked breathing long enough to open her mouth more.

“I’m not going to come up and get you. You’re safe,” the girl lies to Jessica. “You’re hyperventilating. Panicking. I want you to breathe with me. Take the time to breath in, then out, nice and slow. That’s right, you can do it. Nice and slow in… and out…”

Her body follows the commands she’s given.

Time doesn’t seem pass as Jessica listens to the commands to breathe in and out, oxygen helping to clear the cobwebs from her mind. Eventually, Jessica blinks slowly, her brain catching up to speed and telling her that this girl is one of the good guys. “Raven,” she says, voice gravelly from a dry throat, “You’re Raven.” Thinking that she is either in much less trouble (or more than she can possibly imagine), Jessica starts to relax and take a physical inventory of herself. She hurts, all over. But now she’s becoming aware of specific pains, like the dull throbbing when she inhales, a telltale of broken ribs healing too fast. The sharp, stabbing pain of a pinched nerve in her neck when she moves some ways that leaves a fire of pain running down her right arm. The lethargic ache of bruises all through her sides. The dull knot in her stomach of too many missed meals and the stiffness of muscles starved for protein.

“That’s correct,” the other girl replies. After a short pause she asks, “Spider-Woman?”

Looking over herself and seeing how little the hospital gown covers, Jessica barks a short, bitter laugh. “Yea. I’m not wearing my mask, am I?” When Raven shakes her head, Jessica introduces herself, “Jessica Drew. Spider-Woman when I’m in the suit.” Jessica drops off the ceiling, quickly wrapping her arms around her chest for support and a modicum of decency. She winces when she lands, body reminding her aggressively that it needs more time and rest to heal.

Raven manages a small, wry smile, “It may be a while before you’re back in that suit… We had to cut you out of it while tending your injuries.” Raven looks meaningfully at the now broken hospital bed before finishing, “Which seem to be healing quite well.”

“Oh. Um. Right.” Jessica is rubbing the back of her head, her bobbed hair hopelessly tousled from her fights with Cinderblock and the hospital bed. “I have a, um, healing factor? Um, do you have any, um, clothes? Not that hospital gowns aren’t fashion forward or anything, but, I prefer clothes that are a little less backless…” she rambles.

A small smile graces Raven’s lips as she replies, “I think between Starfire and I, we can find some things that will fit well enough. Would you mind if Cyborg came in to see how you’re doing?”

Jessica grimaces or a moment. “Oh. You see, I was going to just get some clothes, then out the windows and back to home.”

“You don’t have to run away,” Raven says, hands up in a placating gesture. “We’d like you to stay for a little while, make sure you’re alright. Maybe see is we can help each other.” Raven is interrupted by a hungry growl from the Jessica’s stomach, “Get you some lunch…”

Raven’s words have slowed Jessica’s nervous looks around the room. “Yea… I guess I can stay or a little while.”


End file.
